


Their Time

by hereforthephilindafics



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Feelings, Flowers, Post-Season/Series 07, Quakerider Valentine’s Day Challenge, Reminiscing, Strong desire, Valentine’s Day challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-07
Updated: 2021-02-07
Packaged: 2021-03-13 04:49:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29272758
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hereforthephilindafics/pseuds/hereforthephilindafics
Summary: It was like fate intervened each time. Maybe it wasn’t the right moment, the right place, the proper feeling.Maybe they had not been the right people.
Relationships: Phil Coulson/Melinda May
Comments: 6
Kudos: 30





	Their Time

**Author's Note:**

> For the QWG 2021 Valentine’s Day Challenge.
> 
> My flower was pink camellias which symbolize strong desire.

The first time Phil Coulson got a hard on for her it was during their introductory hand-to-hand class. Melinda noticed, but went back to her friends, all of whom were fanning over the cute boy with the blue eyes. She rolled her eyes, smirking when she heard John Garret give Coulson grief about his little problem.

_Not so little_ , Melinda thought to herself. 

It was always between them; that strong desire than never kindled into something more.

Oh, there were many longing glances and quick touches, slight arm brushes while walking to class and shoulder bumping when teasing the other. 

There was more than one drunken night where they stumbled through the streets of D.C and tumbled into a bed or a couch (and the floor a couple of times). But they always woke up with all of their clothes still on. Melinda called him a gentleman. Garret called him stupid.

It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried seducing him. Coulson wasn’t easily distracted, but she knew he had a thing for her. Melinda used it to her advantage; when she was sick, or upset, or horny. Except that whenever she got close enough to getting his pants off something always happened. It was like fate intervened each time. Maybe it wasn’t the right moment, the right place, the proper feeling.

Maybe they had not been the right people.

Things settled down after she met Andrew. She was happy and Coulson was happy for her. At first, he was away a lot. Longer missions, more dangerous ones, deep undercover that Melinda was sure he was dead at least a couple of times. But it didn’t work, and Andrew accepted their strange dynamic so easily that they didn’t see a point in missing each other. It was perfect. Melinda finally felt like she found the balance, the place where she belonged, where she could be everything she wanted.

Until she couldn’t.

And then he was dead and she would wake up at night screaming and drenched in sweat, heat and stickiness between her legs, cursing the times she let slip by in their youth. She would lay awake for hours trying to remember his scent, the exact pressure of his palm on her lower back, the correct shade of blue of his eyes.

It wasn’t the same when he came back. Whatever flame once crackled between them seemed to have been blown out by life, by suffering, all the lies and all the grudges. Melinda sometimes could almost watch herself go through the motions of the day, like a constant out of body experience she couldn’t turn off. 

She wondered if he still jerked off in the shower after a frustrating day. If he gasped out her name like she whispered his into her pillow. Was he able to find release or did he only feel rough, dry skin and a maddening throb that didn’t stop no matter what she tried?

It took them a long time to learn how to be friends again, how to trust one-another. They shared more bottles of Haig during those years they lived as ghosts than in all their Academy days. Coulson liked to reminisce about the past, but every time the subject turned to them, young and stupid and full of hormones, he blushed and looked down. She started to wonder if whatever had blossomed between them was really dead.

Melinda still remembered the moment she felt herself throb with desire for him again. She watched him swagger down Z1 after another deployment and wished the hangar were empty. She spent their dinner watching his hands, his mouth, the way his Adam’s Apple bobbed each time he swallowed. Coulson noticed but he only smirked at her.

It still wasn’t their time.

It turned out that their moment would come with an expiration tag. It would be snatched away from them. Melinda thought their time in Tahiti would be all frantic fucking, backs bloodied by fingernails and bruises on tanned skin. Instead, their spent their days making love tenderly, crying onto the other’s shoulder until his last breath.

Maybe this was their time, Melinda thought as she pushed open the door of their D.C apartment. They could buy a house, but Coulson had made the place so homey Melinda felt guilty leaving it.

She smirked at the camellias on the kitchen island, pink and fresh as always. 

“You know, I spoke to a friend at the Academy,” Melinda had told him once.

“You have friends?” Coulson replied, smirking.

“She says the flowers represent strong desire.”

He smirked. “I buy them because they are vigorous.”

“Like you?”

Coulson had wrapped his arms around her waist. “Like our love.”

It was different. This time they could do all the frantic fucking they wanted. Coulson didn’t need a nap or food, and Melinda had gone without either a lot more times that she would admit to her primary care doctor. This time it was like they were making up for all the lost opportunities.

It didn’t matter if it was the bed, the couch, or the shower. Melinda no longer cared what got ruined or broken. Coulson joked that he would just fix it anyway. She let desire rush through her. Gone were the days when she wondered if he actually felt any of this, if he experienced it like she did. It didn’t matter. He was her Coulson through and through, from the glimmer in his eyes when he smirked to the way he tilted his head while thinking. From the amused chuckle when Melinda was being headstrong to the deep, low moan when she took him in her mouth. His sounds of pleasure were all the same still. His body might have felt strange at first, but all she had to do was close her eyes and imagine they were back at the Academy, pressed against one of the books stacks of the quiet floor of the library, making out to release some pent up stress.

All that mattered was that Phil Coulson was finally with her, stocking the same fire they lit accidentally so many years ago.


End file.
